Case Studies For Academics

Written by industry experts, the following case studies can supplement a course and be used to teach application of supply chain management concepts to real-world situations. Others can use the case studies to learn about supply chain challenges and to analyze the situation to develop solutions.

Teaching Notes Are Available Upon Request! For current CSCMP Educator members only, each academic case study is accompanied by teaching notes and solutions for use in facilitating a discussion/activity in the classroom. To request your case study's teaching notes, please contact education@cscmp.org.

BP has interest in both upstream and downstream segments in over 100 countries worldwide. The United States subsidiary of BP is the nation’s largest producer of oil and gas. This case focuses on the upstream procurement activities in the Gulf of Mexico. CODE-ACDCS

This case provides an overview of how a purchasing organization can try to gain a foothold in an area of spending in which it has not been involved in the past. The legal group had been spending hundreds of millions of dollars on outside purchases with no meaningful involvement from purchasing, until a new Director came on board to participate in the transformation of legal spending. CODE-ACDCS

This case, Central Manufacturing: Using Cash-to-Cash to Strategically Manage the Supply Chain, introduces the concept of cash-to-cash (C2C) and an extension of the concept to facilitate supply chain finance improvements between trading partners by harvesting the inherent advantages (lower WACC, lower ICC) of one trading partner to reduce cost and benefit the entire supply chain. CODE-ACDCS

Fashion-oriented product assortments are often problematic to supply chain managers due to short product life cycles, high SKU counts, frequent product rotations, inaccurate demand forecasts, and excessive amounts of obsolete inventory. This copyrighted case* provides an opportunity for students to implement postponement strategies at a wallpaper company in order to meet customer service and inventory turnover requirements for large retailers.
Please note: Case study fees are... Details

This case, ConSort, Inc.: Utilizing Consolidation to Lower Transportation Costs, illustrates the concept of consolidation and how freight forwarders use it to reduce transportation costs. The student must compare a ship-direct model against vehicular consolidation, then consider temporal consolidation, investigate the differences between a freight broker and a freight forwarder, and develop a rate analysis for use in negotiation. CODE-ACDCS

This case study, Dockomo Heavy Machinery Equipment Ltd: Spare Parts Supply Chain Management, is designed to explore the challenges of forecasting and inventory management in spare parts industry. Most items in this industry have lumpy, intermittent, erratic, and slow demand patterns. Traditional forecasting techniques cannot be applied to this group. Also most textbook methods on inventory planning, assumes the demand is normally distributed – which is also not the case in spare... Details

DSM Manufacturing has been around for 100 years. In that time, the company has grown considerably in size and is now a global enterprise. With the global expanse, DSM is now facing new challenges, leaving executives to determine what the next steps are in running an efficient supply chain, those that a network analysis will not necessarily address. DSM Manufacturing: When Network Analysis Meets Business Reality illustrates DSM's process. CODE-ACDCS

Goodwill Industries warehousing operations has increased as the Used Merchandise Store Sales in the US has also increased to a total spending of $17 billion in 2013. Goodwill Industries faces warehousing issues as their inventory fluctuates seasonally. As people do their spring cleaning in the beginning of the year and rush to get their tax-deductible donations in by the end of the year, the warehouses are overflowed but in the off-seasons they are scarce. The following case poses ... Details

This case study, Supply Uncertainty, Demand Planning, and Logistics Management at Goodwill Industries of Oklahoma, looks at Goodwill Industries at Oklahoma as it faces a unique demand planning situation – all of its inventory is donated rather than purchased, which means volume and variety are completely unknown. This plays havoc with the non-profit's logistics and transportation management functions, which students are challenged to address. CODE-ACDCS

Authored by David B. Vellenga, Visiting Professor of Global SCM at Maine Maritime Academy in Castine, Maine and Visiting Professor of Business at LCC International University in Klaipeda, Lithuania, this case deals with the shipment of donated baby foods from Basel, Switzerland to Lusaka, Zambia. It highlights the “last mile” challenges that can sometimes be experienced during the transportation of humanitarian goods to less developed regions of the world. CODE-ACDCS

Aucksun Metal Co. Ltd. is a metal processing and logistics company for the IT industry in China. This case, Improving the Effectiveness of the Forward Purchasing Strategy at Jiangsu Aucksun Metal Co Ltd, addresses how a 3PL company operates in China and describes the implementation of a forward purchasing strategy as well as associated advantages and challenges at the company. CODE-ACDCS

Innovative Distribution Company: A Total Cost Approach to Understanding Supply Chain Risk is a copyrighted* case that illustrates the use of the total cost of ownership concept to analyze and compare two supply chains – one international and one domestic. The case provides an opportunity to calculate economic order quantity and safety stock quantities and then combine purchase price, shipping costs, and inventory carrying costs to quantify the differences between the two supply... Details

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